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Making a Training Plan For Jiujitsu at Purple Belt and up

Your job at white and blue belt is to learn, reinforce and try to master the fundamentals. Every gym defines what those fundamentals are slightly differently, but however your gym’s fundamentals curriculum is structured, your time at white and blue belt has to end with you knowing it inside and out.

In August, I wrote about how to make an improvement plan while you’re a white or blue belt. A lot of the off-the-mat tactics for improvement — visualization, yoga, meditation — remain the same, and are never going to be bad for you. Those practices are all things I still do as often as I can. As you advance in the belt ranks, though, you can expand your knowledge and skillset — both because you’re going to be able to assimilate more information, and because more techniques become legal in competition.

This doesn’t mean you abandon the basics. Quite the opposite. Refining my understanding of the fundamentals is something I expect to do for the rest of my life. Yet as your knowledge expands, the more you realize how much there is to know.

That’s why structuring your training becomes more important at high blue belt, purple belt and thereabouts. It’s the most efficient way to know what you know, and conversely what you don’t know. Evaluating your knowledge base helps determine your drilling and learning priorities. Of course you should keep coming to class, including the fundamentals class. Extra drilling and focused training during rolling are great ways to get faster, better results in addition to class.

Here are three strategies I’ve used in order to try to improve as much as I can every day, every week and every year.  Continue reading “Making a Training Plan For Jiujitsu at Purple Belt and up”

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Making a Training Plan For Jiujitsu at White and Blue Belt

Planning for the worst-case scenarios is the best way to ensure those scenarios don’t happen.

When you’re dealing with something as complex as jiujitsu, the possibilities for what might happen in a given sparring session or competition are almost literally limitless. Preparing as best we can, physically and mentally, is the best way to be prepared. How do we prepare to succeed, though, when the material we need to know is so vast?

The answers slightly vary based on experience level and belt level — and vary greatly from person to person, because we all have individualized needs — but I’m going to give you my best general answers for how to make a three-month plan dedicated to improving your jiujitsu. These would vary based on people’s goals, of course, and particular needs. A young woman focused intently on winning competition jiujitsu matches would have different needs from an older man focused on weight loss and self defense, for example.

 

Having a plan doesn’t guarantee that you’ll hit your goal, but it’s the best way I know for structured improvement. Plus, if you miss your goal, you’ll know you did everything you could to get there, which is some solace.

Originally, this post was going to be how to make a training plan at every belt level. It got very long very fast, though, so I’m splitting it in two. This post will cover how to make a training plan for white and early blue belts. If you’re a mid-level blue belt and up (say, you’ve been a blue belt more than two years, or have two stripes or more), a post is coming for you soon (EDIT: that post is here).

And here’s an idea — what if, instead of just offering private lessons, gym owners offered personalized training plan packages for one, three, or six months that included tailored improvement plans for that specific student? Just a thought for you gym owners. Continue reading “Making a Training Plan For Jiujitsu at White and Blue Belt”

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A little vacation Judo

One reason I started this blog now is that I have time to do some posts. Usually, work, school and training pretty much covers all my free time, and I’d rather be training that writing about training. But now, I’m on vacation for five weeks or so.

All the training I’m going to get in is judo (there is no BJJ instructor in Palau, where I am, but there is a national judo team), and the rest of my jiu-jitsu time is going to be spent catching up on the litany of DVD instructionals I own.

This means:

* When I get back home, I intend to do some “training log” posts about what we go over in class, but for now, I’m going to post about other things I’m working on.

* Expect the occasional DVD review post in the next month or so. First one coming in the next day or two.

When I visited last, I trained with the judo team. They were kind enough to show me a few things. Unfortunately, two of my favorite training partners just left for the Olympics (Good luck, Jen!).

Fortunately, I can still get a little judo in, which I want to do so I can improve my options while standing in the gi. I did some wrestling in high school, so I’ve always had some takedowns. But the gi changes things, and can impede the kind of shot-based takedowns I’m best at. Some basic judo techniques will diversify my standing techniques.

What I’ve learned so far: short, stubby legs suck for foot sweeps; morote seio nage is my favorite throw, because it looks cool and you don’t run as much risk of getting your back taken; and tomoe nage is a terrific option for “I’m not *really* pulling guard, but yeah, I’m pulling guard.”

Got any favorite judo throws I should drill while I’m here?